Most Americans Link Global Warming to Weather Madness

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Severe droughts in Texas and the Great Plains. Hurricane Irene
sweeping the Eastern Seaboard. Tornadoes in the Midwest, and
floods in Mississippi. Record-breaking temperatures across the
U.S. With such widespread madness, it's no surprise that the
majority of Americans say they have personally experienced an
extreme weather event or natural disaster in the past year.

That's according to a new nationally representative survey that
also found a majority of Americans say U.S. weather is getting
worse. Furthermore, a large majority of Americans think global
warming made
several high-profile weather events even worse.

The results, which are part of a long-term project at Yale,
suggest global warming is becoming less of a "down the road" and
"out of sight" issue and more of a "here and now" problem in the
minds of Americans.

The researchers found early on in this project, a decade ago,
that for many Americans climate change was a problem distant in
time and space, "a problem about polar bears and Bangladesh, but
not in my state, not in my community, not for the people and
places I care about," said study researcher Anthony Leiserowitz,
director of the Yale Project on Climate
Change Communication, referring to the public.

"What's interesting about these results is that it suggests
Americans are beginning to internalize climate change, to bring
it into the here and now," Leiserowitz told LiveScience. "The
past two years have been filled with a seemingly endless
succession of extreme weather events." [ 10
Surprising Results of Global Warming ]

He and his colleagues were interested to find out what people had
experienced in terms of this extreme weather, what kinds of
related harm they had experienced and how they had interpreted
their experiences regarding climate change.

So they conducted a survey of more than 1,000 Americans ages 18
and older between March 12 and March 30, 2012.

Their results showed that 72 percent of Americans believe global
warming worsened
the unusually warm winter of December 2011 and January 2012;
70 percent said it worsened the record high summer temperatures
in the U.S. in 2011; the drought in Texas and Oklahoma in 2011
(69 percent); record U.S. snowfall in 2010 and 2011 (61 percent);
the Mississippi River floods in the spring of 2011 (63 percent);
and Hurricane Irene (59 percent).

(While scientists can't tie climate change to any one weather
event, they do have evidence that with global warming extreme
events will become more common.)

Overall, 82 percent of Americans said they experienced one or
more types of
extreme weather or natural disaster in the past year, with
those in the Northeast more likely to have experienced extreme
high winds, rainstorms, cold temperatures, snowstorms, floods and
hurricanes.

Midwesterners were more likely than others to have experienced
extreme high winds, rainstorms, snowstorms and tornadoes. People
in the South were more likely to report having experienced an
extreme heat wave or drought, while Westerners were more likely
to report experiencing wildfires. Not only that, but 35 percent
said they were personally harmed either a great deal or a
moderate amount by one or more of these extreme weather events.

Who supports global warming?

So are more Americans now accepting scientifically backed
man-made global warming ? That depends on which Americans we
are referring to. Leiserowitz has found that with regard to
climate, there are six American publics, each with varying views,
knowledge and interest in this issue. While the extreme views —
the dismissive group who link conspiracy with climate change and
the solid backers of the phenomenon — are staying put regardless
of extreme weather, he said.

The groups in the middle are the people who pay attention to
global warming but don't know much about it, using their personal
experiences and what they see on national news to form an
opinion. These personal and vicarious experiences of extreme
weather start to accumulate in their minds. "That's what we think
is starting to happen for people," Leiserowitz said. One natural
disaster they might see as random; two, that's a coincidence; but
three, and you're starting to see a pattern. [ Quiz:
Weather vs. Climate ]

And these Americans aren't expecting the weather to get any
better, it seems. Fifty-one percent believe the extreme weather
will cause a natural disaster in their own community in the next
year.